Befriending the Merrits
by meandmyfriends
Summary: "The thing about heartbreak is acceptance.""Of the heartbreak,"she explained when Dominique said nothing."But my favorite part,"she continued gleefully,"is revenge.What do you think about slugs?"Dominique Weasley is an average girl battling life's drama,despite the famous surname.But then she finds her cousin unconscious.the professors expected this,but not what happened next.
1. Chapter 1 Prologue

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or Dominique Weasley , however much I might want to

Prologue

Dominique stared at the scene taking place in front of her. She felt an intense urge to rant and scream. Indeed she would have too except that James was faster. "Hey! What are you doing?" Teddy and Victoire separated at once and stopped doing what they were doing when they realized that they were not alone in the compartment anymore. She waited for the guilty flush to spread across their faces as they realized what they had been doing and in front of whom, but there was nothing except irritation at being interrupted. Indeed, Teddy replied rudely, "Snogging my girlfriend. Now scoot."

James looked at them both as if they had gone mad and then burst out with a, "I'll tell them what you were doing." Victoire smirked, though there was a blush on her cheeks as she said, "And what makes you think that they'll mind at all?" James spluttered and then looked at her for support. She was too dumfounded at what Teddy had said to respond to his unspoken plea for help, and failing to garner any support, James left, muttering darkly under his breath.

Victoire grinned weakly, saying with swollen lips, " I know it isn't what the Head Girl is supposed to be doing in the Head's compartment but you know how Dad is."

Dominique opened her mouth, to say what she didn't know, but she didn't get the chance. Teddy smiled the _you know you secretly love me _smile and asked boyishly, "Don't tell your Dad? We want to wait till Vicky's out of school."

And Dominique simply nodded with clenched teeth as she left them alone, because after all, she did. _Love him secretly, _that is.


	2. Chapter 2 some rude visitors

Disclaimer: I don't own Dominique but I do own the weirdos at the end

A/N: The chapter may be a bit uninteresting at the start but I need to set the scene right. the younger cousins will definitely have a big part in the story and it will get a little less angst as time goes.

Since I've never been through a heartbreak I can't really get that part of her feelings right so sorry in advance

_please please please review!  
_

CHAPTER 1

Dominique didn't know how exactly she managed to walk away from the compartment, but she did know that she was glad that her parents had already left. Her heart might be broken, melodramatic though that might be, but she still had her pride, and more importantly, she didn't feel like explaining anything to her father.

She simply concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, on focusing on her feet instead of the people she passed by, on ignoring all those who snarled or shouted at her when she collided with her. it couldn't last forever though, since she heard someone call her name and after that, it was instinct to look up and at the person who called for her.

"Dom!" She heard just before she was nearly knocked off her feet. She couldn't help the gasp that escaped, but was instantly glad of it as she looked at the person who had given her such an enthusiastic welcome. It was Maya Goldstein and if there was a worse gossip at the school, she had yet to meet her.

"Oh Dom! Did you see _Harry Potter_ at the train? I know he was there last year too but _I_ wasn't. Ooh! Can you imagine? He smiled at me! At me!"

Dominique looked at her in shock. At normal times, Maya could be a little hard to bear, but get her going on Harry Potter, and she went nuts. it just wasn't right that she had to deal with her now, that when everything was going wrong, somehow she had to pull it together and act as she always did, that she had to listen to Maya politely while all she wanted to do was scream at her to leave her alone.

She looked at Maya with something akin to hatred. she was just so _chirpy!_ here she was, feeling as if her world was ending, and there was Maya, looking so bright and _happy._ and she couldn't help it. She just had to pass on the pain. It was as if if she made someone else hurt as much or even nearly as much because who could hurt as much as she was right then, then what she was feeling would lessen. she felt as if it would stop feeling as if something was breaking inside her, that it would stop hurting so much to just breathe that she felt like stopping it altogether. And even if it didn't start hurting less, it couldn't really hurt more, could it?

"He's my uncle, you know. I really don't like people who go on about him all the time. Makes me feel as they are friends with me only because I'm related to him."

She regretted saying that as soon as she finished but the damage was already done. Maya looked stricken. Dominique opened her mouth to say sorry but she didn't get the chance. Vane Maribor, a fellow fifth year, commanded her, "Don't. Just go away and come back when you have decided to be nice again. "and saying that, he took Maya's hand and led her away.

She looked at their retreating backs and felt so _awful. _She had been wrong. it was possible to feel worse. she felt it now and it was so _tiring_, having to keep up the facade of being the girl everyone liked, of not being able to act harshly without people thinking that it was a momentary _thing_ and that she would be back acting the same as if there could be nothing in her life that could change it permanently. She looked at her friends leaving her, just like Teddy and Victoire left her when they got together and she couldn't keep it in any longer. And Dominique Weasley, in the middle of that crowded corridor of the Hogwarts Express, burst into tears and sobbing, fled in the direction Maya and Vane had gone in, because going the opposite direction would of course mean that she would have to encounter Victoire. She rushed past all the laughing students as they spoke to each other, said goodbye to their families and she ignored all thee calls of concern as people tried to catch hold of an arm to stop her. She ignored Maya and Vane as she brushed past them and she didn't register their expressions of shock as they wondered whether _they_ had done something to hurt her. she ran till she saw a relatively empty compartment and once inside, she screamed at the occupants, who were so young that they had to First Years, "GET OUT! JUST GET OUT!"

There was a mad rush to get out of the compartment and she was jostled as the students grabbed their trunks and rushed out as fast as they could, yet it felt like ages till they were gone. She was sure that she looked like a fright, the expressions on their faces seemed to say as much and one of them could even be heard saying, "Blimey! I didn't know you had crazy witches."

But she didn't pay attention to this, she instead closed the door and collapsed against it, tears blurring her vision as she started sobbing even more intensely. She leaned against the door, clutching herself, trying to keep herself whole, trying to stop the pieces of her escaping and leaving her broken forever. She cried for her lost dreams and hopes, She cried for everything that she had spent so long hoping for, planning for, everything that was never going to happen in reality. For she knew that this was it. this was no fling, no short lived romance, no crush that was just being driven out of his system. This was it and she had lost Teddy, the boy she had loved since she was seven and he stopped an eight year old Molly from pulling her hair, to he own sister, the one who was _perfect_. After all, who didn't love perfection? and at that thought, she started shaking badly, the tears veritably pouring out of her as if determined to not leave a single drop of water inside her. And somehow she didn't feel like that would be a bad thing. After all, she felt empty, why not be it so in truth?

She felt a banging at the door then, as if someone was trying to open it but failing, and then a shout, "Open the door Dom! we know you're there. Let us in." She hurriedly took out her wand and spelled the door shut before dropping it onto the floor.

Tears streaking down her cheeks, she collapsed into a little ball, jerking every time Vane tried to open the door.

Maya called out, "C"mon Dom, let us in! You're scaring us. Tell us what happened,please!"

She shook her head, blubbering, even though she knew that they couldn't see her. The shaking of the door stopped abruptly and then Vane's voice asked softly, "Dominique, are you all right?" He seemed to realise the stupidity of that question since she was crying and he amended the question, "I mean are you _safe?_ Someone hasn't hurt you, have they?"

Someone had, but it wasn't what he was asking so she managed to clear her throat enough to reply in a shaky but nevertheless audible voice, "Please go away. I just need to be alone for a while." The intensity of the shivers racking her increased, as if it was payback for the reprieve she had gotten and she lay down on the floor itself, hugging her knees to her chest as she cried. There was hair in her mouth and she felt sticky with sweat and she didn't care. She just cried her misery out, trying to exhaust herself. She dimly registered her friend leaving but didn't pay them much attention. it was hard work opening her eyes, let alone listening to whether someone was outside. and soon she exhausted herself enough that with a few hiccups, the stream of tears stemmed a little and she fell into an uneasy doze.

When she woke up, it was because there were voices outside the compartment and listening closely, she realized that there was an argument taking place outside the carriage. Specifically, an argument about those inside the carriage and what they were doing.

She heard a girl say, "Let's knock on the door. Someone is bound to answer."

A boy replied, "What if they're busy?"

The girl replied instantly, "Well then, they shouldn't be busy inside a train. What are they changing their clothes so early for anyway?"

He tried to reason with her, "What if they're _not_ changing clothes but doing something else?"

"Ooh! A secret!" the girl squealed happily. "You're just making me want to open the door even more, you know."

"I did _not_ mean that they were discussing secrets, which if they were, though I'm not saying that they are, are completely theirs to discuss freely without your butting in." He seemed to be growing irritated by the second.

"Well they shouldn't have drawn the curtains then," the girl said pragmatically. "That's just an invitation to come in uninvited. If they hadn't, and we had seen them gossiping away like mad, with sneaky glances cast at the door, I would have instantly realized that I wasn't invited and made off with my trunk."

"So you mean to say that it's their fault for wanting some privacy?" He seemed to find that quite funny, which she didn't but knew that she would have if her heart hadn't felt so fragile that one good shake could have rattled it loose.

"Yes, "the girl said sternly. And then with curiosity, "What makes you think that there _is_ a 'they' in this compartment anyway? It could be empty."

"It's locked from inside," the boy said. The word 'dunderhead' seemed to be implied.

The girl seemed to pout as she said, "I could _Alohomora_ the door."

"No," the boy seemed panicked. "Put that wand away. We're not supposed to use wands outside classes."

"We're new here, Jason. We can always say that we didn't know." The words 'you stupid dunderhead' seemed to be implied by her this time.

"Don't! We might see something we may not want to." The words seemed to be wrenched from him.

And then a snigger did escape Dominique as the girl ewed and they both simultaneously got what he meant.

"Not everyone's got as dirty a mind as you, Jason," the girl said in disgust.

"You'll be surprised at how many do," he said with resignation. "Never seen a more amorous bunch in my life."

"Well whatever," the girl said with apparent unconcern which Dominique did not see as she herself was quite interested in finding out exactly who was making out with whom. The girl said just then in a loud voice , "Hello! Is anyone in there?"

Dominique replied, "No!" She didn't want anyone nosing into her business.

The boy then asked, "Is anyone else in there?"

For a moment, Dominique wished that there was. It would have been fun to see the boy's expression if someone said yes, someone male. But since there wasn't and since she wasn't that good at the summoning charm, she settled with a simple, "No. you can't come in," before starting to look for her wand. it rolled under the seats and she got up after getting it only to find that the door had opened and there were two students standing in front of her. She hurriedly wiped away the traces of her earlier bout of tears, knowing that there were bound to be streaks left on her cheeks.. She hadn't even realized that she _had_ locked the door before those two had pointed it out.

They filed in past her and ignored her tears and as they did have their trunks with them, they got busy stuffing them away, giving her the first chance to study them as she sat down on her seat. she didn't want them there and yet they had rudely barged in and she would be damned before she would let them take their seats first. A petty thing to worry about but that was just what she felt like at that moment.

And looking at them, t_hey were beautiful,_ she realized.

Probably even more than Victoire, even with her Veela ancestry.

Hanging around those two, even her mother would look like a faded out housewife.


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, D or the V and T love scenario. But I do own Jason and Kayla

A/N: I felt like putting the sorting of Al and Rose in this chapter too, but it just became too long, so will probably put it in the next chapter.

Chapter 2

The wanna be Slytherins

UP TILL NOW: Dominique is busy moping around when two students enter her compartment. She is currently looking at them as they put away their trunks.

Dominique looked at Jason first, as the girl was busy flitting all around the place, though how she managed to do that in a compartment this size, she honestly didn't know. He had dark hair, but she thought that it was probably a dark auburn, considering that it shone red in the sunlight coning from the window. He was tall, but since she herself had inherited her mother's willowy frame, he wasn't so tall that she had to crane her neck up to look at him, unless of course, she was sitting on a seat while he was standing. He did not have a square jaw exactly, but it wasn't pointed either, all in all, a normal enough jaw. What she couldn't see was his eyes though; since he was currently looking at his sister instead of her, and all that was visible were the whites of his eyes.

Suddenly, he looked at her and she found that they were violet, a violet that suddenly lightened as he caught her staring at him. He said, "You heard what I said, didn't you?"

"Yeah," Dominique muttered with a slight smile. She had a feeling that the smile looked as false as it felt. He did not point it out though, just looked a bit uncomfortable. She was glad. She would have taken an instant dislike to him if he had looked confident and attempted to pass it off as an everyday occurrence. Though of course, she couldn't find it in herself to like even people she had known her whole life currently, let alone strangers, one of whom spoke weird things, the other of which was as nosy as anything.

There was a thump as the girl sat down on the opposite seat, pulling down the boy with her. They didn't resemble each other very much, considering that she had blonde hair and green eyes, but somehow, she was sure that they were related. And it had nothing to do with the fact that they were abnormally beautiful, beautiful enough to be half Veela.

The girl chirped in a happy voice that grated on Dominique's ears, "Hey! I'm Kayla and this is my brother Jason. We're new here. And you are?"

_New, _Dominique wondered in a slightly muted shock. Hogwarts found wizards and witches at the age of eleven and these two looked considerably older than that. Indeed, if she had to hazard a guess, she would say that Kayla was her age while Jason was older.

But the mild shock, detached as she was, was not enough to make her forget the manners her mother had drilled in her from a very early age, and since she was already feeling guilty about snapping at Maya, she managed to reply politely in a suitably well composed manner, "I'm Dominique."

"Cool," Kayla said as she smiled wider, looking like a Cheshire cat that found the cream as she asked, "That's a French name isn't it?"

Jason rolled his eyes and said, "Ignore her. She has a thing for France."

Kayla pouted, "I do not and don't you know it's rude to cut in when two people are talking?" Jason again rolled his eyes but stayed obligingly silent as he waited for her to speak.

Dominique put her society smile on her face as she replied, "Yeah. My mum's French. And yours?" she quickly deflected the question at them; she had no desire to unburden her history to these people. It could be found in enough history books to make personal revelations unnecessary.

Kayla sent her an arch glance as if she knew what was being done but said, "Die hard British from the tips to the roots. What about _your_ Dad?"

Dominique nearly winced, now came the hard part, she didn't want to lie but neither did she have any desire to spend the remainder of the train ride answering questions about her family. She tried to keep everything short and simple, "British."

"So, where did you spend your summer vacations?" Jason quickly changed the subject. "Egypt. Dad worked as a curse breaker there and so he took us along for a visit." Dominique still remembered the heat, the humidity, and yet the utter joy of being near something as beautiful as the pyramids. They had made her feel small and inconsequential. After all, what was she? She would be dead in a few decades and no one except the family would even really care. After all, voyeurs who only wanted some thrills weren't to be counted.

Shaking off such thoughts, she gave her full attention to them as she asked what she really wanted to know, "So, why exactly have you never attended Hogwarts before? Did you go to some foreign school?"

"Nope," Kayla shook her head. "Mum was afraid that we'd be lynched so she simply didn't send us to any school at all. Dad let her do whatever she wanted to." At Dominique's confused look she confided, "We're famous you see,"

Dominique _didn't_ see, but it did not seem like the time to say so. So she asked instead, "What makes your mother think that you won't be lynched this year? Aren't you famous anymore?"

Jason smirked as he said, "Yes, but there are more famous people here this year."

"The Weasleys, you mean?" she asked involuntarily.

"Yes," he answered. "Mum thinks that no one will pay us any attention if there are little Weasleys to coo over."

"They aren't so small. And there are only two new ones this year." They always counted the Potters as Weasleys too.

Kayla laughed at that. "And how many Weasleys does that make? Seven? Eight? Somehow, that seems like a lot of famous people assembled at the same place."

"Surely there aren't that few." She didn't mean to say that, she really didn't, but then she got this nonsensical idea that they had forgotten to count her, which was silly really since they didn't even know who she was, but since everyone seemed to be in the mood of ignoring her, she just couldn't help it.

"Well, let's see. There are those three of _Les Fauves."_

"Les fauves?" she was offended. How dare they call her father _the wild animals?_ How could anyone be so callous? Her gather was a war hero, a man who had lost so much for the welfare of the community, and this was how he was referred to as, _the wild animal?_

"Now, now," Jason lifted his hands in front of him as if trying to calm a wild animal. After all, what else could she expect? She was after all the daughter of one.

"You don't need to take offence, if you are one of those pro werewolf supporters. She didn't mean anything bad."

"_Didn't mean anything bad?_ HOW CAN YOU EVEN SAY THAT? HE IS THE BRAVEST, SMARTEST, KINDEST MAN, AND _HOW DARE YOU CALL HIM A WILD ANIMAL?"_ She was screeching by the end. This was it, it really was. Everyone knew that she went off the rockers whenever anyone insulted her father, especially just because the war wounds he received were not the type people wanted to see on a regular basis.

Kayla was leaning back in her seat, eyebrows raised. "Know him personally, do we? Well, even if you do, it wasn't meant to be offensive."

Dominique could only gasp in outrage. She was so angry now that she couldn't even speak properly.

Jason tried to placate her, saying quite apologetically, "Mum knew a werewolf once; he used to live with my parents. He was a great fan of the muggle writer H. H. Munroe and ever since, Mum has called anyone _hurt by a werewolf," _there was an odd inflection on the word hurt, and she correctly took it as his way of delicately meaning bitten_, "_as Les Fauves. It was in a story that he likes that's got quite a lot about human follies like jealousy and belittling people as well as the habit of regarding certain people as inferior and inconsequential. We really don't mean anything offensive by it. As Mum says, it's just her way of paying tribute to the great writer as well as the great werewolf."

Dominique wasn't mollified by that and she said so, "That still doesn't give her the right to call such people as animals. They aren't."

"But they aren't quite human either and it's stupid to say otherwise." He said gently.

"It may be but there is absolutely no need to be insulting. It could have happened to anyone. Indeed did, to a lot of those who were at the Battle of Hogwarts and everyone understands that. At least all those who were there do. If your mother wasn't, that's just another cross mark against her to add to her propensity to criticise anyone who was. These things need to be earned."

Kayla gave a strange, bitter little smile and said, "Oh no, she definitely wasn't there" And Dominique had the oddest feeling that their mother hadn't stayed behind because she was a coward, but because she had been forced to."

Kayla brought those bright green eyes on her and asked in a detached manner, as if she wasn't really concerned as to the answer but just wanted the controversial topic out of the way, "So what house are you in?"

"Gryffindor," Dominique answered a little shortly. Children emulated their parents and there was little she could do about it. "What house do you want to be in?" Like Kayla, she wasn't really interested in the answer. But that changed when she said a little absentmindedly, "Slytherin."

**A/N : it just felt like the right way to end the chapter. the ORIGINAL chapter name was _The Merrits Of Golden Haze Horizon, _**** but I just couldn't put the sorting in the same chapter. more than that, I just really felt like ending the chapter with the question of who_ are_ the Merrits that they want to be in Slytherin and why exactly their mother wasn't in the battle of Hogwarts._  
_**

**Please tell me what you think, if any of you bother to read the story. Views just aren't enough motivation to keep on writing a story, even if there is a big desire to do so. So simply send a one word review of what you think of the story.  
**

**Just so you know, it isn't meant to be a very funny story, but not a very serious one either .  
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**so after that long note, I just have one thing to say to all those reading,  
**

**PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE REVIEW!  
**


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